Per his final demands, Joe Heller was laid in his casket Thursday in a T-shirt featuring the Disney dwarf Grumpy and the middle finger of his right hand extended. He also told his daughters to make sure and place a remote control fart machine in the coffin with him.

Laced with bawdy humor, the irreverent but loving obit captured Heller's highly inappropriate nature and his golden heart, friends who filled the fire station for a celebration of his life on Thursday evening said.

The Norfolk-based amphibious assault ship USS Bataan and a locally-based helicopter squadron have been providing assistance to the hurricane-ravaged Bahamas for days, according to Navy photos posted on social media.

The posts provide the first glimpse into the U.S. Navy's response to the hurricane more than a week after the Category 5 storm slammed into the Bahamas, killing 43 as the storm slowly moved across the island chain.

Crew members of western Ireland's Doolin Ferry Co. were headed to Inis Oirr, a small island in Galway Bay, on Monday afternoon when they spotted something bright orange floating in the water.

"First I had a feeling of fear, (wondering) if there was people in difficulty 'cause we could only see about a meter of the bow sticking out of the water," Tom Noel, one of the crew members, said in an email to The Virginian-Pilot Thursday. "Then once we got closer and could see the amount of growth on it, I knew it was a long time in the water and that it was only a danger to navigation."

You'd expect a force commonly derided as a "Chair Force" to rank pretty high on a list of U.S. service branches by obesity, but apparently the Navy has snatched that king-size throne from the flyboys in the Air Force.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is welcomed Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014, at South Bend International Airport after returning from a seven-month tour of duty with the U.S. Navy in Afghanistan.(Associated Press/South Bend Tribune, Greg Swiercz)

Editor's note: We've been pestering campaign officials since February for an interview with Navy veteran Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and one of the many Democrats running for president in 2020. Finally, after months of silence, the news gods finally delivered.

Below, Buttigieg answers questions from Pentagon correspondent Jeff Schogol on the war in Afghanistan, tensions with Iran, and bridging the civil-military divide.